


Untrue

by Alasse_Irena



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 19:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alasse_Irena/pseuds/Alasse_Irena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette, unwilling to disturb Marius with her problem, is troubled by a ghost from the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untrue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



I.  
Pregnancy didn’t suit Cosette. Marius told her that she was more beautiful than ever, that he hadn’t realised it was possible to feel as much love as he did for her and her unborn child. Cosette smiled tolerantly, and privately felt clumsy and awkward and exhausted; she could only hope that once her small frame and natural grace had been restored to her, she could learn love the alien presence now in her womb. She could only hope that motherhood was learnt from instinct, not example.

She would have liked to take long, solitary walks, but neither Marius not his grandfather thought that was appropriate behaviour for a young married woman, and especially not one in her condition. To be fair, Cosette wasn’t sure she was up to it either, so instead she sat in lonely corners of their garden, pretending to enjoy the late spring sunlight, and lied a little when Marius asked her if she was happy.

“Perfectly,” she told him, smiling. It was only half a lie: the sun was pleasant, the breeze was cool, and she loved Marius as much today as she had on their wedding night. Besides, she would not be responsible for further burdening Marius, when he still woke in the night calling for his friends.

“You seem troubled,” Marius insisted. In her whole short life, Cosette had never met someone so oblivious as Marius Pontmercy, and yet he could read her feelings like they were pages in a book.

“A little,” she confessed. The flash of guilt she felt at being caught in her lie was disproportionate; she found herself wanting to make amends.

It was a relief when Marius didn’t asked her what the nature of her trouble was. She wasn’t sure she could have explained it to him. Instead, he took her fine-boned hands - blessedly unchanged by pregnancy - in his larger ones, and looked searchingly into her face. “Is there any way I can help?”

Cosette wished she had something tangible to offer him. If there were some task she could set him to, some way he could feel useful to her, he would be far less anxious.

“I wish your friends had lived,” she choked, past an unexpected lump in her throat. Those weren’t the words she’d been planning to say, and she wished already she could swallow them. “I apologise,” she added. “You must wish it so much more.” She forced down a sob.

Marius squeezed her fingers gently. “I do wish it,” he said. “But so may you. Grief can be shared.”

“I never met them.” Cosette pulled her hand free to wipe her eyes, feeling vulnerable and foolish. Her life had never been so easy or so happy as it ought to be at this moment. “I wish your Monsieur de Courfeyrac--”

“Just Courfeyrac,” Marius interrupted, startling them both. “No particle.”

Cosette made herself smile, in spite of her puffy eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Monsieur Courfeyrac… I wish he had married. His wife and I would be friends. Our children would play together.” She stopped before Marius had to here the entire fantasy she had constructed around the beautiful, imaginary Madame Courfeyrac: how they would sit together in the summer sunlight while the children played at their feet; how they would walk hand-in-hand in the parks - at the Luxembourg, perhaps, where Cosette had met Marius. How Madame Courfeyrac would tell her she made a lovely, loving mother, and her child would grow up in happiness and light.

But Marius, still holding her hand, was no longer listening. He had turned away to stare between the trees. “Did you see that?” He pointed.

Cosette looked, and maybe between the trees she thought she saw something move, and maybe she could have convinced herself it was a girl-shaped something. “I see nothing,” she said. There was no point in both of them jumping at every sound and shadow.

II.  
In the hot, heavy silence, even Cosette’s bare feet on the carpet seemed loud. Her cotton nightgown stuck to her skin. She should go and put something respectable on, she told herself. No: she should go back to bed. She didn’t want Marius to wake and find himself alone. But she couldn’t lie there and listen to him murmur to his absent friends any longer. If only she knew how to introduce him to some new companion, without causing disrespect to the memory of dear, dazzling Monsieur Courfeyrac.

The garden at night seemed a different world: Cosette’s usual lonely haunts were claustrophobic and hostile; the gravel path was sharp on the soft skin of her bare feet. She was struck by a memory of Eponine, when Marius had known her, shoeless and bare-legged in the snow, and sat abruptly on the bench by the path, overwhelmed by guilt. There were women in Paris without warm beds and forgiving husbands to return to, without shoes and stocking to forget to wear, without gardens to keep their indiscretions private.

The crunch of feet on gravel caught her attention, and she lifted her head. There, in front of her, stood an apparition, summoned by her thoughts: that sharp, face, which would have been handsome given someone else’s life; those broad, bony shoulders; the thin limbs.

“Eponine,” she said, at the same time as the apparition said, “The little Lark. Look what’s become of us.”

Cosette stared. She felt six years old again, and terrified. Eponine had died at the barricade; Marius had told her so. She put a hand to her belly, an anchor: she was an adult now, almost a mother. She would never be the starving Lark again.  
“You can’t be here,” she said. “You mustn’t be here.”

Eponine gave her a bright, wild grin. “I’m alive,” she said. “Where’s Monsieur Pontmercy.”

“Asleep.” Cosette was on level ground here: she would not disturb Marius with this ghost of the past. “I won’t let you speak to him.”

“I might taint him with my filthy common hands, might I?” Eponine reached out with those hands, and touched Cosette’s.  
Cosette made a deliberate effort not to pull away. It was only too easy to imagine herself where Eponine stood: had they not started out they same, with mothers who loved them and childish dreams?

“What do you want?” Cosette asked, voice as steady as she could keep it.

Eponine looked into Cosette’s eyes, and Cosette felt pinned to the spot under her glare, immobilised.

“What I want?” Eponine almost spat. “I want to know where my guardian angel went. Who’s going to buy me out of this life? What did I do wrong that you didn’t?”

She stared at Cosette, as thought the answer might be woven into the fine cloth of her nightgown, or braided into her neat, golden hair. Growing, perhaps, in her swollen belly.

“Your family went to America,” Cosette said, hoping it was a peace offering. “Your father and your sister.”

“My family?” Eponine shook her head. “No, I want yours.”

The night was suddenly darker. In Cosette’s head, Eponine’s ragged clothing and starved figure tangled with old memories. She pushed the taller girl away, choking, and stumbled up the path to the open door.

She didn’t feel the sharp-edged stones on her way back to the house, didn’t feel anything until she was beside Marius, clinging to him, the blanket hiding them both.

Safe.

III.  
Cosette was ready for her when she returned. She’d withdrawn money from the account Valjean had left her, without a word to Marius. She would tell him that she had given it to charity. That wasn’t even a lie.  
Eponine stared at the purse of coins as Cosette placed it in her hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Cosette asked. “Someone to buy your life from you?”

“I was at the barricade with Marius,” said Eponine, abruptly. “We could’ve died side by side, him and me. Why do I have to beg for half the life he gets?” She gave Cosette one of her animal smiles, lit by hungry eyes. “I could be his equal, if you only let me.”

“How do you mean?” Cosette asked. Her voice wobbled.

One of Eponine’s long, brown hands moved to cup Cosette’s cheek. Cosette shivered, even in the heat of the night: Eponine’s cool, rough fingertips snagged against Cosette’s delicate skin. The stones beneath her feet might well have been goose-down; the stifling air a cool breeze. She could feel nothing else.

“What?” Cosette began, barely audible.

Eponine shushed her, harsh voice gentle. The sibilant syllable raised the hairs on Cosette’s neck. Cosette didn’t know what she anticipated; she could no longer breathe.

“May I?” Eponine whispered. Their eyes met, brown to blue. Eponine’s breath burned against Cosette’s cheek.

Cosette, mute and trembling, nodded.

Eponine carefully stretched forward, navigating Cosette’s rounded belly, and pressed their lips together.

It was nothing at all like kissing Marius. Eponine was fierce and hungry, her hands twisted in Cosette’s curls possessively. Cosette pressed back, bruising her lips, finding missing teeth with her tongue.

“Hah,” Eponine muttered, pulling back for a moment. “I have something you want.” And then they were pressed together again, body to body.

It wasn’t romantic. It was messy and painful; Cosette once thought she tasted blood, but she couldn’t have said whose it was. She had no idea how she would explain her swollen lips and tangled hair to Marius.

Marius. Cosette forced herself to push Eponine away. “I should go,” she said, breathless.

Eponine laughed. “I won’t say this wasn’t nice.” She shook the bag on coins, so that it clinked gently. “Tell Marius…” She hesitated. “Tell Marius I don’t need him after all.”

And then she was gone, just a shadow, and Cosette was never quite able to convince herself Eponine had been there at all.


End file.
